Can you tell how badly I need this vacation?

Yes!  Here we go!  I'm getting out of Singapore, away from work, away from stress/pressure/ridiculous expectations, and going back to a country that I enjoy a little more each day.  Who would have thought that I would love going on vacation in Indonesia?  It's safe to say that two years ago this is a country I not only thought I would never see, but also didn't care if I would ever see.  I'm so glad I've come, though, and my mind is totally changed.  So it's back to Jakarta in order to forget about Singapore.

For a flight just over an hour, that was one of the most uncomfortable experiences I’ve had in a long time.  My neck was horribly, horribly stiff and when I finally drifted up out of my coma I felt a. Confused, b. Exhausted (still), and c. a fire in my neck that was almost as if I had been working out for 12 hours the previous day and the lactic acid had built up to critical levels.  I was distracted from the pain, though, by the fact that I could barely keep myself awake.  ‘Swimming’ in and out of consciousness is a  very apt metaphor for what was happening and I wished with all my might that I would wake up at Changi airport so I could go home and go to bed in my tiny, stuffy box of a room.

What happened as we were landing in Jakarta gets more unsettling each time I look back on it, actually.  I was half-awake, half-asleep, there was a little bit of turbulence, and even though it was dark out I could tell it was foggy because the light on the wing had a 6” wide halo around it.  As we descended choppily, I thought to myself I hope we crash.  I wouldn’t have to go back to work.  Life would be so much easier if we just crashed.  I didn’t even have my seatbelt buckled.  Once we had walked into the airport and I was fully awake, I was taken aback at how such depressing thoughts had bubbled up from my subconscious.  If there were any doubt in my mind about whether I would stay in Singapore next year, the last few days have quieted them because for the first time in my life I’m seeing definite mental and physical symptoms (chest pains and neck spasms) of all the stress I’ve been under.  I’m not going to go into it here; if you want to know more you’ll have to read my Singapore blog, but I just continue to be amazed at how joyless and soul-crushing this job and country is.

An hour after landing I'm sitting at a street-side table trying to figure out what I forgot.  So far I’ve got my elastic money belt, insect repellent, my ezLink card, a water bottle, and my USB converter for my memory cards (that’s what really hurts—no uploading photos on the road and no way to transfer the pictures to my computer to clear up memory).

Geez, if a terrorist really hated foreigners and wanted to take out a lot of them at once they just need to come to the street my hotel is on; Jalan Jaksa is crawling with white people in plain, solid-colored, slouchy clothes and scarves.  Memories Cafe is cram full of greasy, unshaven (for both genders) travelers looking for cheap pints and dancing to club music that came out in the US years ago.

The weather is nicer than I remember, although it is nighttime and it did just rain.  But I still remember the night I slept outside the Jakarta airport in June feeling loads steamier than this.  So is this a good sign? 

There have been other good signs, too: First, I thought the bus into town from the airport had finished and I’d have to pay a lot for a taxi, but a nice lady saw me near the bus stand and told me there was one more coming.  Second, the bus station turned out to be right at the base of the National Monument I’m visiting tomorrow and it was really pretty to look at while it was lit up.  Third, as I stepped off the bus, waiting for me was the first tuk tuk I’ve seen since I left India!  I knew I’d be getting a ride from him, even if he did overcharge me a little bit (probably should have been half that).  Fourth, when I stopped on the street to check the address of where I wanted to stay that night, I heard another girl say she was looking for it, too.  So she and I walked to it together and she offered to let me stay with her when they said they only had one room available.  So there were many, many good signs already that make me think this trip will go well. 

Well, I’ve finished my dinner (canai—a lightly fried dough that’s like a large, crispy prata and comes with a veggie & broth dipping sauce), so it’s time to walk back to the hotel along Jakarta’s back alleys, past the hookers and motorbikes—both for rent—to the lullaby strains of fifty drunks singing along to Axl Rose and “Sweet Child of Mine”.  Welcome to Jakarta.

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"The little things give you away"

Elias touches me from time to time, just gentle gestures that anyone might do with a friend, like putting his hand on my knee when he walks past me or on my arm when we’re crossing the road and a car is coming or on my elbow on the many occasions that I’ve slipped and almost fallen (I’m getting clumsier as I age, I swear). So nothing suggestive, just casual moments of contact, but each time it happens I get a jolt. As I’ve thought about why I'm reacting this way, I’ve realized it effects me so strongly because it’s been years since I’ve been touched like this, just regular physical contact in small ways that are how someone shows you they care about you. Now don’t read into this, I know it’s not like that with Elias; he’s such a nice guy that it’s just normal behavior for him to show affection. But it’s still another reminder that I’ve gone years without contact like this. I’ve had some romantic encounters, but what I’m talking about is different than that; it’s the regular, predictable, little things people do to show you that you’re loved. Oh, how I miss that! If someone tried to hold my hand I would probably go into cardiac arrest. It’s not a pleasant feeling to be hyper-aware of even the most innocent of touches from someone of the opposite sex because it’s really just desperation underneath it all and no one likes someone who’s desperate.

On a related note, it's getting pretty damn annoying seeing signs advertising for 'makin oke' every fifty feet.  Whatever food it is, I doubt I'm going to try it.  That would be weird, right?


Okay. Enough. On to more uplifting topics. How can I be so fixated on this when I just spent another day in paradise? Danau Toba is beautiful and about every half-hour or so I look around in absolute bliss. Walking around today it seems as though all of the shops are open and there are people staffing them, but Elias and I could count the number of tourists on one hand. Despite this, there seems to be no desperation to win our business, and more often than not people walk out to the street and call out a hello to you just to be jovial. It’s the total opposite of what I had come to expect in India, where every seemingly-innocent conversation somehow got turned into a sales pitch. 

I've noticed this in almost every city here I've been to: the Indonesian people seem to prioritize being pleasant (when they aren't driving buses) and getting to know you better over making a lucrative business deal.  And I have to say I really appreciate that, but there's a catch: you usually don't get a chance to just sit quietly and get some peace.  It seems that sitting and reading or writing or just enjoying the scenery is an open invitation for people to come up and ask you all sorts of personal questions.  Poor Elias, he's been traveling for years and he's said he gets tired of explaining "German, single, nope no girlfriend, 25, traveling the world, backpacking, no good reason, just adventure, etc.".  I'm getting annoyed after only a week, mainly because it just feels awkward to be asked everyday where my husband/kids/boyfriend/father is and stuff like that (and they just don't understand single women past 18, let alone single women past 18 traveling). 

We had plenty of chances today to introduce ourselves to the village because we spent the morning walking, exploring, window shopping, taking pictures, and swimming!  Oh, it was lovely, if a bit freaky because the waves were fairly large and I'm still afraid of deep water.  It didn't help that my swimsuit is a few years old and has lost its elasticity so I was basically holding everything up as I got out of the water.  Oh, and then I accidentally lost one of the hotel's towels because I pulled Elias in while he was wrapped up and HE LET GO OF IT IN THE LAKE.  Come on, everyone knows you hold onto the towel in the water!  So there goes 25,000 rupiah. Oh, well, that's only about $2.50 and overall the morning was incredibly relaxing and went by at a nice, slow pace.

And the afternoon was just as good!  We attended a cooking class led by Haddy, a woman who has lived in Tuk Tuk all her life and whose cookbook is apparently highly coveted because she makes such incredible food.  Definitely one of my bigger purchases so far at 210,000 rupiah, it was still a lot of fun and I think it was worth it in the end.  She welcomed us with a big plate of fruit then brought us over to start chopping, peeling, smashing, sauteeing, boiling, cleaning (a fish--I gave that honor to Elias), and grating coconuts over what seemed like kind of an iron comb.  We had lodeh (veggies and tempeh in a kind of gravy), fish with tomato and chilli sauce, chicken curry, and banana fritters with coconut for dessert.  By the way, Elias is definitely the best coconut grater/scraper out of the two of us; Haddy was very impressed.  Show off.

And just to enjoy our food a little bit more, Haddy leads us, laden with our creations, out the back door of the restaurant and up a flight of stone stairs to a picnic table with one of the best views I've seen yet.  It's incredible, and yes, I do think it made the food better.  On a funny note, the neighborhood cats know that when someone comes up here they're bringing food with them; about ten of them surrounded us and began a chorus of meows that weren't really that adorable until I had eaten a little and wasn't quite so hungry myself.  Elias was nicer than I was, he saw one eyeing the fish carcass and purposely set the plate where the cat could get up to it and, sure enough, that fish was on the ground being eaten bones and all in about 3 minutes.  Oh, but the food was so good!  Not too spicy, a lot of coconut, fresh tempeh, fresh fish from the lake...all just so so good.  And I can make it at home because she gave us a copy of her cookbook!  So if anyone wants some delicious Indonesian food come visit me (once I figure out what country I'm going to live in next year, that is).

Elias and I decide to end the evening the way most of our native counterparts here do: at the local pool hall drinking Cokes and watching every local guy under 30 competing for bragging rights. I order a Bintang and Elias and I start flashing through the pictures on my camera as we wait for the pool table to become free. Despite hearing from them that every other shot is “easy”, I play miserably and am happy to watch most of the time. Nixon, a guy who works at our hotel and who brought both of us on the back of his motorbike tonight, is exceptionally good, but then again what else is there to do most nights of the week other than television? When we get back, Elias and I watch “Deconstructing Harry” in bed then finally succumb to exhaustion. What a wonderful, wonderful day!

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I'm in Melaka! Huzzah!!

Yes! This is great!! I'm finally getting out of Singapore and into another part of Southeast Asia! I've turned down other trips with friends to places like Indonesia and Vietnam because I figure since I intend to go to those countries later for a long period of time, why spend good money just to go there for a few days? Also, I have to admit that overall, when I look back on my trips, I enjoy travelling alone for the most part. You meet more people that way and you can be a bit selfish about where you go and what you do. But on the road itself that does get lonely and can be difficult, so maybe the ideal way to do it is to travel with one other person, but take periodic breaks where you travel apart for a little while. Finally, something tells me my friends would have a hard time staying in some of the, uh, ‘budget’ hostels I tend to use.

But about Malaysia. I took a rather colorful bus from Singapore to Melaka, expecting it to take somewhere around 4 hours. It took 7.5. What I failed to appreciate was that this was Vesak Day, a public holiday, and thus a day that people would be fleeing Singapore en masse to take a little holiday. We crawled through traffic, crossing one of the world’s smallest countries at a snail’s pace. Malaysia’s immigration desk didn’t help, though, and in a room the size of a high school gymnasium, approximately 2,000 people waited for clearance to enter the country. Guess which line moved most slowly?

I slept through most of the bus ride, which really felt great, and only woke up when a. the air conditioning went out (again) and it got too steamy on the bus, b. I had to go into customs and c. the bus driver tried to leave me at a golf resort with the other passengers on the bus, a Chinese family staying there for a reunion. It was another 45 minutes from there to the actual station listed on my ticket. Thanks for trying to leave me alone in the middle of nowhere, dude.

But that’s where the complaints end because Melaka is great! I had a few hours before the sun went down, so I checked into Sama-Sama Guesthouse’s dorm and hit the street. This is one of the most walk-able cities I’ve ever been to—all the roads dump you out into basically the same main locations: city square, the bridges leading across the canal, or the Jonker Walk (more about that later). The streets are narrow and mostly one way and there are no sidewalks so pedestrians must squeeze between the cars trundling by and the foot-deep gutter that collects run-off and garbage. Straying to either side is not advised! Living in the US, I never would have guessed that it could be so enjoyable, though, just to twist and turn up one street and down another, ducking into alleys, following gravel paths, and generally trying to get lost. Nothing in America is like this at all.

When I left my hostel, I learned it was on Jalon Tukang Emas, or Harmony Street. It’s called this because within a half-mile you can find Kampung Keling Mosque, Malaysia's oldest Hindu temple (Sri Payyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Temple), and Malaysia’s oldest Buddhist temple (Cheng Hoong Teng--Green Clouds Temple). The mosque is a bit bland and shabby, but you can tell the donations are made good use of in Cheng Hoong Teng. The paint is fresh, the floor is clean, the lanterns aren’t coming apart, and the brass is polished. Add to the captivating view the heavenly smell of incense being burnt and gongs being struck periodically and suddenly you find yourself wondering if you have to convert to be Buddhist or if you can just start coming here whenever you want.

Continuing along the street I buy a freshly-cut pineapple (an under-appreciated benefit of living in the tropics: the wealth of fresh fruit available year-round) and look at all of the traditional nonya shoes for sale. In a refreshing change from other travels, I realize that no one is calling out to me or taking photos of me or trying a sales pitch or honking at me or anything like that. While I certainly don’t go without being noticed, I’m not harassed, either, and it’s wonderful!

Cutting down a gravel path between buildings I stroll past a beautiful traditional wooden home as well as some shacks made out of sheet metal, tarps and hope. Soon, though, I’m at the canal and walking towards the ocean. It’s easy to imagine Melaka as a busy port 500 years ago, with boats being rowed up and down the river loaded with spices, fabrics, precious metals and other goods coming from or bound for China, Persia and Europe. The massive red buildings built by the Dutch (original) and 17th century wooden cargo ship (replica) conspire with the traditional low-lying houses, canal-side ruins of a fort, smell of salt water and flaming sunset to make you believe the East India Trading Company still exists and is dominating the NYSE.

After exploring and creating a mental map of the city, I sit down for a beer, some fried tempeh with salt and curry leaves (oh, wow, so good) and a slightly spicy vegetable soup served in a coconut. It’s dark out now and the weekend street market has come alive. Cheap shit made in China is put on display next to food vendors and it reminds me of an American fair: lots of things that light up, food on sticks, young people out for a cheap date, and...senior citizens singing karaoke while wearing jester hats and sparkly shirts? All right, that one I have no equivalent for, although I’m happy to report that corn dogs are just as popular in Asia as they are in the US.

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